Sunday, August 3, 2008

The city is beautiful! Full of genious buildings, great street life, beaches, mountains, cool stores, monuments, historic places, and more, much more. And the food, oh the food... Barcelona and all the Catalunia region have some of the best chefs and restaurants in the world (Adrià's El Bulli is probably the most famous).

And what about their patisseries? This city is the home of a few of my favourite pastry chefs, and it was the perfect opportunity to go drool over their trendy patisseries. I was a happy (and well fed) girl these days! Wanna come on a tour of the sweet side of Barcelona?

Let's start with the big Oriol Balaguer, he's probably the pastry king in Spain right now. He wrote one of the greatest pastry books ever and his shop looked more like a jewelry store instead. Everything was so darn perfect! I bought a box with 4 gigantic vanilla financiers. Lovely...

Next stop was Enric Rovira, a master chocolatier. Another jewelry store like shop, with pretty and modern packaging and cool flavours.

Almond, milk chocolate and mostard or wasabi, white chocolate and peas? Oh well, I'll take the saffron ones instead... Would you look at the color of that saffron ganache?

Another chocolate heaven was Xocoa. One wall completely covered with different flavours bars. But it was too hot to carry chocolate around so I decided for a basil-coffee chocolate chip cookie. Interesting stuff...

So after that generous quantity of sugar I decided to go to the famous market in the city center, La Boqueria.

I though it would be a good opportunity to buy some fruit and some healthier things. Yeah, right... Of course I found fruit, but my eyes were more interested in the chuches, gomitas, frutos secos y otras porquerias...

Everywhere I looked there were gummies! They're very popular in Spain, so if you live by the rule "In Rome be a Roman", well then in Spain... eat gummies!

Right next to the market, in probably the most popular street La Rambla there's another iconic pastry shop: Escribà. They're most well known for their jewelry made out of sugar.

Caramel rings that you can eat?! That gotta be better than diamond ones, right?

I didn't buy a caramel ring, but if I had bought it I would probably propose to Carles Mampel, the head behind my absolute favourite pastry shop from this trip: Bubò.

I'm in love with him, with his style and with his... pistachio macarrons.

What about his Opera Cake (remember this?) on a stick, covered with chocolate and crunchy bits? Carles will you marry me?

So now back home I think I'll have to start considering cutting down on the sugar to compensate for the enormous amount I had last week. I'll start with these spanish olives I brought back with me. Even thought they're almond brittle covered in white and dark chocolate, they're still olives. Right? And olives are like vegetables, right? Right???

OMG.. Rita! This must be heaven! You're sooo lucky! I haven't been in Barcelona in about 10 years and i can see it has changed a lot. I love the book by Oriol Balaguer by the way. Pure genius. And THAT pistachio macaron, i WANT!

What gorgeous pictures! I think the best part about going on vacation is getting a free pass to eat all the sugar (and other food) that you want. Looks like you used your time well! Thanks for sharing.

Sounds like such a fun trip and just my kind, full of goodies. Did you do a lot of walking? When I was in NY, I was grateful for all the walking, to equal out all the goodies I ate!My boys would certainly be in gummy heaven there!Me, I'll stick with chocolate, thank you!Great pictures!P.S. I DO sleep in my bed in our bedroom, but it's not far from the kitchen! ;)

...Intellectuals and artists like Picasso and Salvador Dalí were frequent visitors of Cadaques and helped give it the international prestige that it is known for today... . I sound like a tour guide...sorry

Holy cow! I would be in heaven. All those candies. I love gummies too, but that Opera cake on a stick? Hello?That one pic of all the gummies is such a beatufil picture; you should enter that one in a photo contest.

Welcome back and wow, looks like you ate well and had a great time! Sadly, my wife and I hadn't planned our trip to Spain so well and just about every place of interest on our agenda was very under construction or pretty quiet and dead. Looks like we'll have to go back another time!

Haven't completely decided yet, but definitely Barcelona, for starters. Originally I thought I would postpone seeing Spain until I got a booking at El Bulli, but I don't think I can wait until I'm sixty to visit the country! ;P